"Would I had influence to guide your path!" said Rose; "you should find it a smooth one--ay, an honest and straight one, to boot." "How mean you, maiden?" said Eveline. "I would have you," answered Rose, "recall the encouragement--the consent, I may almost call it, you have yielded to this proud baron. He is too great to be loved himself--too haughty to love you as you deserve. If you wed him, you wed gilded misery, and, it may be, dishonour as well as discontent." "Remember, damsel," answered Eveline Berenger, "his services towards us." "His services?" answered Rose. "He ventured his life for us; indeed, but so did every soldier in his host. And am I bound to wed any ruffling blade among them, because he fought when the trumpet sounded? I wonder what, is the meaning of their _devoir_, as they call it, when it shames them not to claim the highest reward woman can bestow, merely for discharging the duty of a gentleman, by a distressed creature. A gentleman, said I?--The coarsest boor in Flanders would hardly expect thanks for doing the duty of a man by women in such a case." "But my father's wishes?" said the young lady. "They had reference, without doubt, to the inclination of your father's daughter," answered the attendant. "I will not do my late noble lord--(may God assoilzie him!)--the injustice to suppose he would have urged aught in this matter which squared not with your free choice." "Then my vow--my fatal vow, as I had well nigh called it?" said Eveline. "May Heaven forgive me my ingratitude to my patroness!" "Even this shakes me not," said Rose; "I will never believe our Lady of Mercy would exact such a penalty for her protection, as to desire me to wed the man I could not love. She smiled, you say, upon your prayer. Go--lay at her feet these difficulties which oppress you, and see if she will not smile again. Or seek a dispensation from your vow--seek it at the expense of the half of your estate,--seek it at the expense of your whole property. Go a pilgrimage barefooted to Rome--do any thing but give your hand where you cannot give your heart." "You speak warmly, Rose," said Eveline, still sighing as she spoke. "Alas! my sweet lady, I have cause. Have I not seen a household where love was not--where, although there was worth and good will, and enough of the means of life, all was imbittered by regrets, which were not only vain, but criminal?" "Yet, methinks, Rose, a sense of what is due to ourselves and to others may, if listened to, guide and comfort us under such feelings even as thou hast described." "It will save us from sin, lady, but not from sorrow," answered Rose; "and wherefore should we, with our eyes open, rush into circumstances where duty must war with inclination?" Why row against wind and tide, when you may as easily take advantage of the breeze?" "Because the voyage of my life lies where winds and currents oppose me," answered Eveline. "It is my fate, Rose."